gerrymandering

The governor of New Jersey is Phil Murphy, a Democrat. Both Houses of the state legislature are controlled by Democrats, the Senate 26-14 and the Assembly 54-26. There's just one New Jersey congressional district that elected a Republican in 2018. It would be easy as pie for New Jersey Democrats to gerrymander the map to make Chris Smith's 4th CD go from an R+8 district to a much more winnable R+1 or 2 or even an even district that a Democratic candidate could easily win.

The High Court decided to do nothing about a practice that, in the words of dissenting Justice Elena Kagan, “beats democracy,” writes Marjorie Cohn. By Marjorie Cohn Truthout The Supreme Court has abdicated its responsibility to strike down partisan gerrymandering. This…Read more →

Qasim RashidThe first time I ever heard about a non-partisan commission drawing election maps it came as part of a proposal to have blue California and red Texas mutually disarm. Democrats in control of the California legislature would cede the right to draw the maps in the Golden State and Republicans in control of the Texas legislature would do the same there. The California Democrats agreed.

Lets get the bad part out of the way first. The Supreme Court— in a totally predictable partisan 5-4 decision— told the states to gerrymander all they like without worrying about the Supreme Court doing anything about it.

Some good news on the Ohio gerrymandering front. About a week ago, we reported that a federal court had struck down Ohio's pernicious Republican gerrymandered congressional maps. Needless to say, the pernicious Republicans immediately started screaming like stuck pigs and appealed.

The only chance the Ohio GOP has to continue winning congressional majorities is if the US Supreme Court allows extreme partisan gerrymandering-- and most people say it willEarly yesterday, a federal court unanimously struck down--

A federal court Trump hasn't had the opportunity to pervert yet, voted unanimously to strike down the Michigan GOP legislature's grossly unconstitutional gerrymander that handed a 50/50 state over to the Republicans in the state House, state Senate and congressional delegation, even while statewide, the Democrats were kicking GOP b

In an interesting, unsigned piece in The Economist this week, The Failure of Gerrymandering, the point was made that "Ever since district borders in America’s House of Representatives were redrawn in 2011, Republicans’ share of seats has exceeded their proportion of the vote.

Wisconsin had an anti-red wave last month, but no one has told the Republican state legislature. Democrats ousted Republicans Scott Walker and Rebecca Kleefisch and elected Tony Evers and Mandela Barnes as governor and lieutenant governor, reelected Tammy Baldwin to the U.S.

Actual photo of the man who sank gerrymandering to new depthsWhen Republicans in Texas gained control of the state legislature, then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay went home to work with them on creating new Republican seats where Democratic seats existed before— and in the middle of the decade, no less, not satisfied to wait for the 2010 census.